Pretend you are a judge. This man comes before you in a bail hearing:

Diea Sayhood, 29, of Richmond, faces 13 charges including rape, abduction, assault and making a threat to kill. Police allege Mr Sayhood was involved in incidents with two girls aged 14 and 17 in Richmond in August and September. Mr Sayhood has a temporary protection visa after fleeing his homeland with three other men.

Do you?

a) Decide that this man has fled from his homw country committed heinous crimes multiple times against multiple youths and therefore is dangerous and is not to be trusted out on bail.

Or do you?

b) Decide he is not an unacceptable risk to the community and release him on $10,000 on bail.

Well, were you Magistrate Lisa Hannan, in Victoria Australia, you would choose b, he is obviously a fine upstanding man who has just been misunderstood and can be trusted to return for his hearing on December 2nd, having not committed another crime.

< email | 10/09/2002 03:59:00 PM | link

I remember seeing lots of stories about Nothern Alliance massacres of Taliban prisoners and UN and human rights groups investigations. Any sort of atrocity should be investigated but this went on for years under the Taliban and the UN-iks sat on their hands wimpering that something should be done. And now they are silent about it.

Authorities in northern Afghanistan said Wednesday they have discovered several mass graves containing the corpses of hundreds of people allegedly massacred by the former Taliban regime. One mass grave in the district of Chamatal, about 24 miles west of the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, contained 350 bodies, said Mohammad Sardar Sayedi, spokesman for the main ethnic Hazara group, Hezb-e-Wahadat. All the dead were ethnic Hazaras — among them women and children likely killed in 1998 when Mazar-e-Sharif fell in heavy fighting to the Taliban, Sayedi said.

Local residents reported the grave sites to authorities, who investigated and found them full of bones, Sayedi said by telephone from Mazar-e-Sharif. ``We've found lots of mass graves around Mazar-e-Sharif since the Taliban government fell last year,'' Sayedi said. ``People come to us and point out the graves. They say they were afraid to tell anyone these things while the Taliban were in power.'' Sayedi said at least two other mass graves were found in the nearby district of Qart-e-Zarhat. He gave no details about them, however.

Hazara leaders claim their group, about 10 percent of Afghanistan's population, suffered the worst atrocities at the hands of the Taliban. They claim as many as 15,000 Hazara were killed in a religiously motivated slaughter in Mazar-e-Sharif and other parts of Afghanistan.

< email | 10/09/2002 03:41:00 PM | link

Another story about women making their own lives themselves in the now free Afghanistan.

Once cloistered by the Taliban's rigid rule, Afghan women have emerged from the closed environments of their homes. They have gone back to school and work. Some have shed the cumbersome burqa that shielded their faces and bodies from public view.

In some schools, girls are trying furiously to make up for the five years of education they lost under the Taliban, says Sherine Jayawickrama, deputy director of CARE USA's Asia program. The Atlanta-based humanitarian agency, which sponsors development programs for women and girls in Afghanistan, has recently added training sessions for 1,200 female teachers.

"Things changed overnight for [women\]. Now they dream about contributing to their societies," Jayawickrama says.

< email | 10/09/2002 02:51:00 PM | link

Heh heh! Sorry, a little bit of sinful glee here. Iran has banned Christiane Amanpour. I've always found her stories, as a supposed disinterested observer, to be excessively slanted and her sucking up to murderous dictators just so she can get the story, to be very slanted. I also liked the time when Arafat hung up on her (that was Christiane, right?)

A British diplomat in Tehran told Reuters: "The facts are that the Iranians do not want her to come into the country and she has had to get off the plane in Kuwait. They have an exclusion order against her, and they have refused to reconsider it for this trip," the diplomat added.

< email | 10/09/2002 01:52:00 PM | link

More details on the Marines shot in in Kuwait.

When U.S. Marines were fired on by two Kuwaiti nationals during a training exercise Tuesday, they had no way of defending themselves, U.S. officials said.

The Marines were practicing urban warfare tactics on Failaka Island in the Persian Gulf and were carrying no ammunition for their weapons, U.S. officials said.

One Marine was killed and another was wounded. U.S. military police chased down the two assailants, who were dressed in civilian clothes and driving a pickup truck, and shot them dead, according to the officials.

< email | 10/09/2002 01:15:00 PM | link

JSTARS role in a war with Iraq.

The tactic would allow the 200-250-mi.-range radar to better monitor dispersal of mobile Scud launchers and antiaircraft missiles. The two major Scud launch boxes for attacking Israel during the gulf war were located in far western Iraq. One was centered on the H-3 air base complex near the border with Jordan; the second encompassed the H-1 and H-2 airfields along the Syrian border.

Joint-STARS crews also would be looking for the movement on the ground of L-29 unmanned aircraft that would threaten Israel, Jordan or U.S. facilities in neighboring Arab countries with chemical or biological weapons. While the Air Force is determined to be alert for possible use of the drones, and the British government's recent assessment of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction backed U.S. intelligence's warning of their existence, many U.S. Air Force officials are skeptical of the country's capability to use the aircraft operationally.

Any observed movement of Iraqi forces west of Baghdad would be used to cue other aircraft, like the U-2, orbiting the battlefield, that have synthetic aperture radars with much greater acuity (less than 3ft. versus 12 ft.) for more precise identification and targeting. Saudi Arabia has quietly assented to operation of the ground-surveillance radar-equipped E-8 from its bases, an Air Force official said. The U-2s are operating from the United Arab Emirates and would be joined there again by the Global Hawk UAV--the unmanned aircraft returned to the U.S. last week, completing its Afghanistan assignment largely to save money and allow a buildup of spares that had depleted.

< email | 10/09/2002 12:50:00 PM | link

Eat more curry. It may inhibit the growht of tumors.

< email | 10/09/2002 10:40:00 AM | link

And so the circle is now complete. The French have gone back to calling our Iraq outlook simple.

French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin Tuesday regretted the United States "simplistic vision" on the Iraqi crisis, reaffirming that the United Nations (UN) is the unique legitimate body to make decisions on this issue. "The young nations have the tendency to underestimate the history of old nations," Raffarin told the National Assembly at the start of a debate on Iraq. Raffarin said he wishes to remind "those who develop a simplistic vision of war of the good against the evil" of the danger that will be caused by a unilateral war to change the Iraqi regime.

Ah, yes the old age canard. Listen up Frenchy, our Constitution is older than yours by a long shot (not to mention that our people represent the history of every nation they have come from to escape nuanced rule). Unless you consider yourselves the direct governmental descendent of say the days when France was ruled by an Emperor. But then France would have to do everything the very old an nuanced Egyptians, Iraqis and Chinese say.

As for our 'simplistic' approach, we could remind Mr. Raffarin that the last few times the French played very nuanced we got Vichy France handing over their Jews before Hitler even asked (So simplistic protecting our Jews, eh?) or the bombing of Damascus when they held rallies to try and claim independence from the Protectorate system (giving them a lesson in nuance there?) Besides I consider our more 'simplistic' approach a good deal better than your we're an arrogant bucnh of asshole French people so listen to what we say. Last time I was in Egypt one of our guides (British) had this to say to a French group that was excessively rude to us. "you can ask us politely to quiet down or you can keep shushing us like a bunch of French people!" (it immedeately endeared him to the people in our group. In which there were only two simplisme Americans. Everyone else was British, Irish and Australian) I think this adequately covers this situation also.

"We must consider the use of force as a last resort when everything has been tried by way of dilpomacy," said Raffarin.

I guess we are discounting the last 12 years and calling a do over.

If you have something thoughtful to add, please do so, otherwise sit down and shut up.

< email | 10/09/2002 07:36:00 AM | link

Tuesday, October 08, 2002

The CIA report on Saddams WMD programs.

< email | 10/08/2002 09:57:00 PM | link

Talk about flip-flop. This guy does it twice in the same article about the need for health care professionals in Zimbabwe.

There are over 30 000 black doctors in the US the majority of whom are out of practice because of the discriminatory system in that country. Very few white Americans can stand being attended to by a black doctor while the managed health care system had made the situation even worse.

So, we keep all of our non-white doctors out of work (My family belongs to an HMO. My doctor is Indian and my wife's doctor is Chinese. 75% or more of the nurses and aids in the office are black.)

Or is it:

Mr Muhammad took a swipe at European and American companies for taking advantage of the current economic situation in the country by recruiting local health professionals.

"This is not fair. There seems to be concerted effort by these companies to pull professionals away from Zimbabwe. If the companies were sincere they would stop advertising these jobs leaving people here to suffer. This is not normal, but a crisis," he said.

So let me get this straight. We keep black doctors and health care professionals out of work because we are so racist we wont deign to be treated by blacks and at the same time we are drawing all of the professionals in Zimbabwe here so we can keep them out of work? Well, sounds like an unassailable position to me.

< email | 10/08/2002 09:42:00 PM | link

The Ayatollah Khamenei speaks out about why the regime must crack down.

"The people expect the government to provide an atmosphere in which they can perform their religious obligations with peace of mind, and not to see unethical scenes harming their religious sentiments," Khamenei was quoted as saying in the national press. "So the Islamic Republic of Iran's police are expected to prevent any unethical scenes," the supreme leader said in comments made to a police gathering late Sunday.

Take out the references to religion and you have a Leftist. No wonder they swoon over Iran's theocracy. If only they could remove the religion part from it.

He also reportedly asserted that moral conditions were more important than people's economic situation, although he did also underline "the need to respect the privacy of every individual".

As long as they are ont together in private with people of the opposite sex, listening to western music, dressed in any western clothing, drink any sort of alcoholic beverage, or anything else on the ever expanding list of proscribed activities you are welcome to your individual privacy in Iran.

< email | 10/08/2002 03:50:00 PM | link

A few bits on the history of pre-emption that I never heard before.

George W. Bush is not the first incumbent of the White House to have declared on behalf of a strategy of pre-emption. His three-term predecessor Franklin D. Roosevelt represented the same kind of thinking at one point in his career. This becomes clear from the discussion that Roosevelt had with the Soviet Commissar for Foreign Affairs Vyacheslav Molotov in May 1942, on Molotov's first visit to Washington DC.

Roosevelt shaped out a world order for the time when the fighting would be over, in which the leading nations of the United States, the USSR, Great Britain, and "possibly China" would act as the world's police force. Smaller nations could be disarmed if they threatened to disturb the peace, and if any of them should refuse to observe the demands of the great powers, then in the last resort they could be bombed into submission. Two days later Molotov reported to Roosevelt that he had received permission from Josef Stalin to state that the Soviet government was in complete agreement on these plans to forestall aggression.

China's nuclear test in 1964 even drove the US and Soviet Union to consider jointly what should be done.

China was not among the signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in July 1968.

Hence in 1969 Moscow considered the possibility of a pre-emptive strike against China's nuclear capability. Soviet diplomats tested the water in Washington to find out whether the Americans would actually turn a blind eye to this move. The Americans had, after all, still not recognised the government of the People's Republic in Beijing.

But the Soviets were too late in getting into the game. The newly-elected US President Richard M. Nixon and his national security adviser Henry Kissinger were already planning the opening up of relations with Communist China and they rejected Moscow's overtures.

This is from a larger article about the 'new' US stance on Iraq and how the UN Security Council Members will repsond. Written by Max Jakobson is a former diplomat and Finland's permanent representative at the UN. He concludes.

From the viewpoint of President Bush, however, it is almost certainly more important that he gets the blessing of both houses of Congress than that he receives a mandate from the UN, and right now we can already say with some certainty that a majority of both Democrats and Republicans will soon approve the President's call for authorisation to use force against Iraq.

As a consequence, the power of veto held by the five permanent members of the Security Council becomes little more than a diplomatic formality. If China, Russia or France use their veto to reject the resolution sought by the US and Britain, it will still not prevent the United States from setting its military plans in motion without the blessing of the UN.

Against this backdrop, the governments of those three countries will thus have to weigh up their position primarily on how it will affect their relations with the United States. Playing the veto card would not ultimately rescue Iraq, but it would damage relations with Washington. Hence it is most likely that what will emerge is a compromise that satisfies the United States.

< email | 10/08/2002 03:08:00 PM | link

A Kuwaiti paper reported this morning that Saddam recently escaped an assassination attempt.

The Kuwaiti news agency said that the Arabic-language article in Al-Qabas newspaper reported a failed bid "last week" by a military pilot in Iraq to bomb a presidential palace where Saddam Husayn was present.

Diverting his plane towards the Al-Tharthar palace at the beginning of a military exercise, the pilot succeeded in reaching the target zone but was struck by a missile fired from the ground.

The Soviet-made warplane was said to be shot down by the air defences of Saddam's personal guards and the pilot captured, interrogated and subsequently burned to death in front of his fellow servicemen from the air force.

Here is the story from Kuna.

Meanwhile, the same newspaper quoted unidentified travellers, who were recently in Baghdad, as saying that a state of high confusion was prevailing in the ranks of the regime's personnel as a result of deep concern over a prospected internal uprising to oust the regime. Up to 30,000 special personnel have been deployed in areas where the regime fears a prospected rebellion, it said, adding that five brigades of the presidential and republican guards have been stationed in Baghdad, as part of special measures to forestall possible popular action. Al-Qabas said that the regime troops have repeatedly combed low-income districts of Baghdad in search for hidden weapons and special units have been stationed at statues of the Iraqi ruler after several of them were sprayed with anti-regime slogans.

< email | 10/08/2002 02:34:00 PM | link

Financial Times is reporting that there is a divsion of opinion on what happened to the Limburg.


Let's not jump to conclusions but, does this hole on the waterline of the Limburg look familiar?

< email | 10/08/2002 12:02:00 PM | link

The crackdown continues.

Iranian police have arrested 120 party-goers at three private gatherings in wealthy districts of the capital Tehran and charged them with mingling with the opposite sex and dancing, a newspaper reported Tuesday.

Not to beat on Reuters. Okay, yes I do intend this as further beating. Notice how terrorists become activists and any unsavory jingoistic sounding words are stuck in scare quotes, yet what the purity police in Iran call party-goers is reported faithfully by Reuters?

< email | 10/08/2002 12:00:00 PM | link

Reuters, reporting agency of peace? In the story about the shootout in Kuwait yesterday that left and American Marine dead Reuters doensn't bother mentioning the dead soldier and in the opening paragraph and title make it seem as if the Marines were at fault for the clash.

Two Killed in Clash with U.S. Marines in Kuwait
Tue Oct 8, 8:38 AM ET
KUWAIT (Reuters) - Two people were killed and an American soldier was wounded in a shootout involving U.S. Marines training on a Kuwaiti island in the Gulf, security sources said Tuesday.

< email | 10/08/2002 11:53:00 AM | link

Monday, October 07, 2002

He may still hate Israel, but at least he is talking sense.

The secretary general of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Nayef Hawatemah, has called for halting the suicide operations against Israel.

The Monte Carlo radio said on Saturday that Hawatemah expressed his anger during talks with the Israeli news network via the Internet against the Palestinian authority and the Hamas movement because they did not abide by the agreement that provides for halting the suicide operations.

Hawatemah also criticized the Palestinian groups because they have recruited Palestinians from the territories of 1948 to carry out operations against Israel.

Hawatemah considered that the Israeli prime minister is a catastrophe against the Palestinians and the Israelis. But he also stressed that the responsibility for the deteriorated of conditions is not borne by Israel alone, but also the Palestinian Authority.

< email | 10/07/2002 01:27:00 PM | link

No alcohol? Who made up this religion? I'm outta here.

Abdurahaman (now John) Lwasampijja, stood up in the mosque and said he could no longer stay in the religion which did not allow drinking alcohol.

< email | 10/07/2002 01:26:00 PM | link

Score another victory for the simplisme Bush team. Russia and Georgia are making conciliatory moves. This wouldn't have happened with US intervention when Russia asked to be allowed to make strikes in Georgia in return for a positive vote in the UN Security Council (You mean Russia would act in its own self interest in making such a vote? Stupid UN-iks).

``Everything we have done was aimed against bandits hiding in Georgia, never against Georgia itself,'' Putin told Shevardnadze in Moldova ahead of a presidential summit.

``I entirely agree with you that we must put an end to terrorism,'' Shevardnadze responded, adding that he expected he and Putin would achieve a ``breakthrough'' in relations over the next day.

< email | 10/07/2002 07:33:00 AM | link

It appears as if members of the upper echelon of Saddam's government are defecting.

Ayad al-Awi, the head of the opposition Iraqi National Accord, said his group in recent weeks had received senior defectors from the Iraqi security services, which form the regime's nerve centre.

At the same time Kurdish groups said they had received secret approaches from military commanders offering to turn their weapons on Saddam when the war began. They said members of the al-Majid clan, the pillar of Saddam's tribal power base, had made contact to seek assurances about their fate.

Mr al-Awi said the INA, a group formed by former members of the ruling Ba'ath party, had seen a surge of interest from senior members of the regime. "We have been getting approaches for the past two or three months, but the trend is increasing. Those contacting us come from Saddam's inner circle. "Some have defected, while others have been asked to stay to help us from inside. We cannot say much about the defectors at the moment, but some may speak after they have been debriefed. "Things are happening inside the regime that will hopefully mean we can get rid of this evil regime. You can speak of Saddam in the past tense."

< email | 10/07/2002 07:26:00 AM | link

Sunday, October 06, 2002

Some of Saddam's suppliers are talking.

The businessman, who asked to be known as Mohammed, is one of a network of middlemen supplying the Iraqi dictator with anything he needs. He revealed how military equipment and items for a weapons of mass destruction program are shipped into Iraq on a scale far greater than previously has been believed. His revelations gravely undermine Iraq's promises to allow UN inspectors unhindered access to suspected weapons sites.

He revealed that Mr Hussein had, since 1992, imported virtually any prohibited item and, through a clever fraud, obtained oil revenue supposedly blocked for use only in the UN oil-for-food program. The businessman said one of Baghdad's most recent requests was for 160 tonnes of three chemicals that are used as a propellant for missiles. "The Iraqi agent said if I could find any of these chemicals, he would pay me any amount of money. It was clear he had authority for millions of pounds," he said. He revealed that in just one year, he had successfully forged 145 UN permission letters for shipments that entered Iraq illegally. "And that's just me," he said.

But Saddam can't further his WMD programs this way, can he?

Mohammed said he knew numerous other import-export agents in Turkey, Jordan, Syria and the United Arab Emirates who routinely struck similar illegal deals.

One document supporting his claims was originally passed to an import-export agent in Hamburg and lists 160 different spare parts for T-55 and T-62 tanks. These included 500 speedometers and 50 barrels for 100mm tank guns. The agent was told he would be paid a 25 per cent commission. The list was given also to a senior Syrian official. A third middleman allegedly gave $US600,000 ($1.1 million) in diamonds to Saddam Hussein's son Uday Hussein after a $US7.5 million illegal deal, as encouragement to put more business his way.

Mohammed last dealt with Baghdad in July, when an Iraqi agent requested 160 tonnes of xylidine tri-ethylamine, UDMH (unsymmetrical dimethyl hydrazine), and DETA (dimethylene triamine). The dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, issued last month by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, described UDMH and DETA as liquid rocket propellant for use in the al-Samoud missile and other longer-range Iraqi missile systems.

Mohammed goes on to explain how it works.

Mohammed began working as a middleman for Baghdad in 1992. His speciality was circumventing border controls. To do so, he forged Security Council letters permitting the shipment to Iraq of apparently innocuous items. A consignment of 23,464 Russian tyres for armoured personnel carriers was shipped via Ukraine and Jordan as tractor tyres and the inspectors at the Iraqi border did not notice the difference. For this operation, Mohammed said, Iraq paid a total of $US218,000 in bribes to four different people, including a senior Turkish official.

In September 2001, he handled a shipment of 15,000kg of used washing machines from Britain. He was told by an Iraqi agent: "Don't worry if they don't work." In Aqaba, a computer banned under UN sanctions was put in each washing machine before they were trucked into Iraq.

In another complex operation, Mohammed shipped fabric to South Africa, hid electrical equipment in the fabric, and then shipped it all to Jordan and on to Iraq.

On other occasions he shipped 10,000 pieces of unspecified electrical equipment, 13,000 computers, 25,000 televisions, 600 tonnes of heavy industrial lubricant from Poland and steel cables thick enough for use on a suspension bridge.

So,all of those people who want to tell us to give inspections and sanctions, both of which have proven wildly innefective, please explain again why we should give these methods another try?

And how effective is the UN?

Under the UN oil-for-food program, Iraq's oil revenues go into an escrow account and can only be released by the UN to pay for food and other goods that have been approved by the sanctions committee. In a typical deal, Mohammed bought a consignment of stationery and bought an inflated receipt for $US4 million from a corrupt dealer. He shipped the paper to Iraq, received $US4 million from the UN, passed $US1 million in cash to an Iraqi government agent and pocketed a profit.

Benan Sevan, executive director of the oil-for-food program, said on Saturday that UN officials monitored for such practices but could not catch everyone, and the workload was lengthy and tedious.

Mohammed admits this is just a common example for him that sucked $4 million out of the UN and Mr. Sevan shrugs it off as 'we can't get them all'? This is unacceptable.

< email | 10/06/2002 06:57:00 PM | link

They just don't understand Bush. Or is it international relations and politics? In another 180, Iraq's ambassador to the UN is saying Iraq may accept a new UN Security Council Resolution.

Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations, Mohammed Aldouri, yesterday said Baghdad would be willing to consider a new UN Security Council resolution on weapons inspections.``We are not rejecting any resolutions of the Security Council,'' Mr Aldouri told ABC television.``We will see these resolutions. First of all to have this resolution in our hand, and after that we can conclude.''

< email | 10/06/2002 06:35:00 PM | link

Winning hearts and minds. All of the people who wail about the evils done by America to Afghanistan sleep comfortable in their homes at night go on TV or write in newspapers and find themselves very witty. Meanwhile our armed forces are out doing things like this.

It's been three months since Willie, a 20-year-old paratrooper from Baton Rouge, La., got here from his home base in North Carolina. He admits he had no idea where Afghanistan was before Sept. 11, 2001. Today's mission is to provide humanitarian aid to a village six miles south of the base, and Willie - a military policeman - will help the medical team. The soldiers will conduct medical exams, distribute blankets, toothbrushes and other supplies, and test the village's pumps to determine if the water is safe to drink.

Even on a more personal level our troops make life better for the Afghans.

The Americans also give butterscotch candy, pens and toothbrushes to the children. Willie demonstrates how to use a toothbrush, and youngsters imitate his strokes.

< email | 10/06/2002 06:31:00 PM | link

A shipwreck that could change history.

The discovery of an ancient wreck on Fraser Island yesterday threw doubt on whether Captain James Cook was the first European to land on the east coast of Australia. A Queensland-led team of archaeologists uncovered what they claimed was a 16th century shipwreck on the eastern shoreline of Fraser Island. The 30m wreck is believed to be Portuguese or Spanish.

Photographs of three cannons visible during low tide will be sent to international experts to verify their age. "Based on the shape of the cannon it looks like probably a 16th century shipwreck," team spokesman Greg Jefferys said. "We've found a whole row of deck cannon there, so it's convinced me that it's a significant military exploration ship rather than just a trading ship. We're 99.9 per cent sure that we've got something that will re-write the text books."

If the wreck is confirmed to be from the 16th century, it will prove Capt Cook was not the first European to land on the east coast of Australia. While Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch captains charted much of the northern and western coasts of Australia during the 16th and 17th centuries, it was Capt Cook who is credited with discovering the east coast in the 1770s.

< email | 10/06/2002 05:50:00 PM | link

Want to know who said this?

"What if [Saddam] fails to comply and we fail to act, or we take some ambiguous third route which gives him yet more opportunities to develop this program of weapons of mass destruction? ... [H]e will conclude that the international community has lost its will. He will then conclude that he can go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of devastating destruction. And someday, some way, I guarantee you, he'll use the arsenal."

Or this?

"send as clear a message as possible that we are going to force, one way or another, diplomatically or militarily, Iraq to comply with their own agreements and with international law." "[W]e have exhausted virtually all our diplomatic effort to get the Iraqis to comply," "We have got to force them to comply militarily."

Which ultra-hawk Bushie uttered this line?

"we have made it clear that it is our policy to see Saddam gone."

< email | 10/06/2002 03:03:00 PM | link

A nice story about a group of Italian women who married American soldiers who were part of the 88th Division in Italy.

This involves an aspect of Americans that I think many people overlook. Unlike so many noon-Americans who travel and see places from an ethnologists more nuanced view and who search out only those aspects they wish to see, Americans immerse themselves in the places they go, they want to absorb and see and learn as much as they can. We want to meet and talk to everyone. We are used to meeting people and immediately starting a friendship. Americans will exchange addresses and phone numbers after five minutes of conversation in a restaurant or even while standing in line. If you do that with an American expect a call and a Christmas card.

For all the smears thrown at a racist imperialist America, I doubt any other nation in the world can compare, even in relative terms, to the number of Americans married to people of a different race or culture (myself included. I am married to an Indonesian woman I met while living overseas). It is a part of the openess and acknowledgement that 'all men are created equal' that is inherent in our culture.

< email | 10/06/2002 01:13:00 PM | link

Such American Cowboy Hegemons. At least some people do not forget American sacrifices. A South Korean General presented medals to a group of Korean war vets at a VA Hospital.

"It was such a heart-warming and heart-breaking experience for me," Choi [Choi Seung Woo, a retired ROK Army major general] said. "It was a moment of truth for me; because of the veterans, we Koreans can now be free and prosperous. As long as I live, I will keep visiting Korean War veterans to say 'Thank you.'"

Some of the Vets had some things to say, too.

For Carl Goericke, 75, of Austin, receiving the medal was a "proud, proud, proud moment." After serving in the Navy during World War II, he re-enlisted in the Army and fought in South Korea from July 1950 till June 1951. Goericke recalled fighting in the Pusan Perimeter just after the North Korean invasion, and then the breakout and battle all the way to Yalu River that was the border between North Korea and China. "It feels good that somebody appreciated it," Goericke said. "I volunteered in World War II and I volunteered for Korea and I am proud to serve any time. If they'd give me a good M1 rifle I'd go to Iraq."

< email | 10/06/2002 12:21:00 PM | link

The six Norwegien F-16's, recently arrived in Afghanistan, flew their first mission. Nothing spectacular, a hour patrol. Still, good to see an ally helping out. Helps to dispel that whole 'unilateral' thing.

< email | 10/06/2002 01:17:00 AM | link

I thought Yasser backed Saddam in 1991. So, is there some reason that the Palestinian Authority recieves money from the compensation fund for losses caused by Iraq when Saddam invaded Kuwait? Besides the UN looking for any reason to funnel more terror backing cash to the PA.

A Geneva-based United Nations panel has approved awards totalling nearly $1 billion in damages arising from Iraq's 1990 invasion and subsequent occupation of Kuwait. The Governing Council of the UN Compensation Commission announced on Thursday awards totalling $995,825,094.18

The largest of the awards was $694 million for claims by Kuwait's Ministry of Defence and the Kuwait Oil Company for the removal and disposal of mines and unexploded ordnance.

The Palestinian Authority had until 30 September to submit late claims on behalf of individuals who did not have the opportunity to file their claims by the original deadline of 1 January 1. While the final total is not yet computed, it is estimated that some 45,000 claims were submitted by the Palestinian Authority.

To date, the Commission has awarded compensation of approximately $ 43.6 billion. It draws funding from a portion of the revenue which Iraq earns under the UN "oil-for-food" program.

< email | 10/06/2002 12:44:00 AM | link

A group of Christians has been banned by the Anglican Bishop of Harare after they prostested his support of Comrade Bob.

Nineteen church wardens, officials and choir members disrupted Bishop Nolbert Kunonga's sermons last month to protest their political content and praise of Mugabe. The ban takes effect Sunday.

Kunonga, head of the Anglican Church in Harare, has divided Christians for his outspoken support of Mugabe's push to seize white-owned farmland and distribute it to landless blacks.

The parishioners, who want politics kept out of the church, will appeal ask the Harare magistrate's court to strike down on Tuesday, their lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa said. The interim order banned them from worshipping at the main Anglican Cathedral in downtown Harare and from visiting church-owned buildings and activities until further notice. ``It means they can be arrested, even if someone invites them to a parish house for tea,'' Mtetwa said.

In court documents dated Sept. 25, Kunonga accused the 19 church officials of disrupting services, with choir members refusing to provide choral music and on one occasion leading the congregation into ``uncontrollably'' singing hymns to stop the service. Kunonga was elected bishop last year, amid accusations he used his influence with the ruling party to secure the post. He was also accused of firing priests who opposed his nomination.

< email | 10/06/2002 12:34:00 AM | link

The full Kurdish Parliment has met for the first time since 1994. And is saying the right things.

"Our goal now is not just to make Kurdistan free, but to make Iraq free," said Barzani. Rising Kurdish nationalism has worried neighboring Turkey, a close U.S. ally which has a 12-million strong Kurdish community of its own, as well as Iran and Syria. All three oppose any partitioning of Iraq. "This meeting should not exceed its limits, it should not be presented to others as a sign of a move toward the declaration of independence," Turkish Foreign Minister Sukru Sina Gurel told CNN-Turk television.

Kurds insist they don't want a new nation, just a semiautonomous enclave within a federal Iraqi government in Baghdad.

"Our people have been striving for a long time," said Rosh Noori Shawais, the assembly's speaker. "They have been subjected to chemical bombardment and oppression.

They deserve legal rights within the framework of international law."

There are 12 million of them living in a state of borrowed grace and yet, unlike the Palestinians, the UN has not devoted an entire Commission to them. Dozens of Resolutions are not passed condemning Saddam and the treatment they recieve.

< email | 10/06/2002 12:27:00 AM | link

The Somali woman in Holland that I mentioned last month, who spoke out against the Islamic fundamentalists there, in now in hiding. Does anyone realize what we face here? Please people, wkae up before every moderate voice of reform is chased into hiding or murdered for their views.

In doing so Ayaan Hirsi Ali has become the Netherlands' very own Salman Rushdie and is now in hiding after receiving a barrage of anonymous death threats, allegedly from extremist Muslims.

I like the allegedly. Like there is the possibility itcould be a rouge group of Dutch Moonies or something. Well, it is the Guardian.

This is part of the bitter attack as passed on in the article I posted on 09/23.

In a popular talk show early this week, Ms Hirsi Ali made a plea for full women's rights, including "complete personal freedom and individual choice". Muslims deny "the serious imbalance that exists in relationships between Muslim men and women", she said and added that, in this context, Islam could be called "a backward religion".

The trouble started when she took part in a live debate on Dutch TV. An advisor to the Dutch opposition Socialist party, she used the opportunity to launch a bitter attack on Islam, taking issue with what she called the shoddy way in which it regarded women. Making a plea for full women's rights including 'complete personal freedom and individual choice' she claimed there was a 'serious imbalance' in relations between Muslim men and women and borrowed Fortuyn's famous phrase to label Islam 'a backward religion'

Sounds like a bitter attack to me. I wonder if a woman attacking a Christian or Western tratement of women would be described as 'bitter' in the Guardian.

Yassin Hartog, a spokesman for Islam and Citizenship, the Netherlands' main Muslim lobby group, says he believes the death threats against Hirsi Ali may have been fabricated to blacken the Muslim community. 'We're getting more and more signs that these death threats are bogus,' he told The Observer. In an effort to distance themselves from the affair 17 Muslim organisations have signed a declaration condemning the death threats. However, this is not the first time anti-Islamic rhetoric has attracted death threats in the Netherlands and elsewhere.

And Yasser Arafat condemns terrist attacks against Israeli civilians.

'This is nothing new - just think of Salman Rushdie,' Secil Arda, the head of a Turkish women's group, told Radio Netherlands. 'Some people have the courage to say something, to give their opinion. 'I consider our fight a milestone in the process of emancipation. Without this quest we would never have change.'

< email | 10/06/2002 12:19:00 AM | link

Today in history.

1939 – In an address to the Reichstag, Adolf Hitler denies any intention of war against France and Britain.
1973 – War erupts in the Middle East as Egypt and Syria attack Israel during the Yom Kippur holiday.
1981 – Egypt's President Anwar Sadat is assassinated by Muslim extremists while reviewing a military parade in Cairo.

< email | 10/06/2002 12:01:00 AM | link